


Nadir

by shadow_djinni



Series: Haxus Mini Event 2017 [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Haxus Lives, Haxus Mini Event 2017, M/M, Victory/Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 23:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12641700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_djinni/pseuds/shadow_djinni
Summary: Neither victory nor death.Or, leaving Sendak to save him is the hardest choice Haxus has ever been forced to make.





	Nadir

**Author's Note:**

> So, for those of you here from the redemption arc stuff I'm writing: this is canon in that AU.

Haxus feels it the moment his balance shifts off the catwalk, the gap behind and below him tugging on him.  Impatient.  Greedy.  His hand locks around the drone--the one the paladin had stolen, the one that has just rammed directly into his cheek, hard enough to put him over the edge.  His boots still touch.  His grip won't last forever.  The paladin scrambles towards him.

He will never know _why_ , because the drone chooses that moment to shut down.  He hears the whine of its systems powering off before the device succumbs to gravity, yanking both of them down into the void.  He shrieks, terror sinking claws into his chest.  His boots slip.  Haxus stretches, reaching for the edge of the catwalk even as he realizes he wouldn’t be able to reach it in time.

Half a body’s-length down, it registers that the paladin had been reaching for him, too.

And then they’re too far and pulling back, and it’s just him and the drone and the void.

He flips onto his back and spreads his arms, trying to control his fall.  The drone is falling more slowly--it’s much lighter than he is, after all--but it can’t be long before the bottom rushes up to meet him.  Everything has slowed down, the adrenaline has hit his brain at last, and he’s thinking clearly for the first time.  He’s fallen from things before, but not so far.  The receding light from the turbine above him kicks something loose in his head--basic training.  Repairs on the cruiser’s hull.  The asteroid that had knocked him off.

The hard-light tether in his breastplate.

It’s not tested for use in gravity.  It’s his only shot.

He fumbles for the controls on his bracer, orients himself in the direction he wants--the nearest wall--and activates it.  An arc of magenta energy shoots from his wrist, up and up and up until it collides with the wall.  It continues to unspool energy for several terrifying ticks, though he knows it’s to slow his fall.   _It’s not the drop that kills, but the sudden stop at the bottom._  

And then he hits the end of the tether.  The stop jars him anyway, yanking violently at his breastplate.  The latches that hold it together creak alarmingly but hold.

The drone plunges past him, and Haxus tries to catch his breath and listens.  Thirty ticks after it passes him, he hears it _crunch_ at the bottom of the turbine and flinches.  If he were _any_ slower, that would be him down at the bottom, armor shattered, shards of bone driven through his lungs, his heart, his brain.  He shudders, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.  And then he begins spooling in the tether, pulling himself back up the shaft.

Of course, his rushed shot only gets him halfway up the wall.  Haxus rests his boots against the metal and tilts his head back, staring upwards.  The light from the central turbine blinds him, but he can see the dark shape of the catwalk clearly enough.  It’s impossible to tell if anyone remains up there.  He sighs and studies the wall.

His rushed tether launch has landed him just above a seam in the metal, close enough to brace himself on it...if there’s enough of a ridge.  The toes of his boots slip off, and there’s nowhere to put his hands.  Haxus takes a deep breath.  He can already hear Sendak teasing him for it-- _“Oh, so_ now _who's the reckless one?”_  Then he slips off his boots and loosens his belt enough to slide them through, fastening them to his sides.  There’s _just_ enough space at the seam for him to hook his claws through it.  Haxus leans against the wall, turns off the tether with one hand, and jams the other into the hole it made.

It’s a close-run thing.  He nearly falls anyway.  He presses his forehead against the wall, gasping for breath and reeling from the drop behind him, from the dizzying tug of gravity.  Fear makes another go at disemboweling him.  He ignores it, and, still holding on to the wall, lines up his second shot and fires.

It slams home exactly where he intended it to, just below the edge of the catwalk.  Haxus takes another deep breath, steels himself, and swings out into the void.

The ascent to the catwalk takes longer than the one up the wall, and Haxus has to pause a few times to make sure his tether is still secure, that it will hold out.  Sure, the hard-light system is designed to keep him attached to a moving cruiser if he falls off, but it’s also fighting gravity for him and Haxus isn't sure if the design specs accommodate that.  It does the job, though, and within a few doboshes he scrambles over the edge of the catwalk.  He sprawls out across it, gasping, fighting to get his heartbeat back to a normal rate.

Then he rolls back to his still-bare feet and pads over to the control panel.  It winks at him--all good, no issues with the turbine.  Haxus flicks on the comms and nearly announces himself when a distinctly non-Sendak voice emerges from the speakers.

_“--o about_ that _?”_  He recognizes the lilt to the voice--has to be the speaker who guided the rogue to the particle barrier.  So she’s inside now.  Joy.

_“I say we just kill him and be done with it.”_  That’s a new voice--not Champion, not the rogue.  Probably not the unconscious paladin, either, so it has to be the second person who left the Castle.  But _him_?

Realization strikes Haxus like a splash of icy water to the face.   _Him_ can only be one person.  Sendak.

_“I'm with Keith,”_ says another familiar voice--the rogue.   _“He's caused enough trouble, I don't think we can risk letting him live to cause more.”_

Can he make it to the bridge in time to stop them?  What can he do, outnumbered like this?

The next voice is Champion’s.   _“...I don't like the idea of killing an unconscious enemy.  It feels like butchery.”_  

Odd.  Haxus distinctly remembers several of Champion's matches ending with him dispatching unconscious opponents.

_“So what do you suggest we do with him?”_ asks the first voice.

_“Do we have somewhere we can put him, where he won't be able to cause trouble or escape on his own?”_

_“There are cryopods on the containment level, but we won't be able to activate them properly until Coran and Hunk return with a new crystal.”_

_“I don't think he’ll wake up before then,”_ Champion says.  Haxus's heart skips a beat, then starts up again double-time.  If Sendak’s really that badly off…he shakes himself as Champion says, _“Keith, you and Pidge stay here with Lance.  The princess and I will take him down to the containment level.”_

Then everything on the other end is a flurry of muffled movement.  Haxus flicks on the microcomputer in his bracer and pulls up the map he’d downloaded from the bridge.  It’s in Altean, of course, but he runs it through the translator.  It takes painful doboshes to translate, and another dobosh to locate the containment level.  Then Haxus takes to the vents.

It takes far too long to reach his destination.  The vents twist and turn, and are fond of sudden, sheer drops, but eventually he finds himself behind a grate in the ceiling of the room he wants.  There’s no sign of Champion or his companion--the princess--but he can just barely make out Sendak's slumped form beside one of the cryopods.  He contemplates his next move for a few ticks.  Champion and the princess are obviously gone, and they won't have control of the security systems until they install their own power source.  He could easily drop into the room and see if he can rouse Sendak enough to get out.

How much time do they have?

Haxus leaves his boots up in the vents and drops barefoot into the containment area.  He lands soundlessly in a crouch and freezes, ears swivelling for any sign of Champion or his companions.  Nothing.  He stands slowly and pads over to Sendak.

Up close, it’s obvious why they were comfortable just leaving him there.  Sendak's arm is cuffed to the side of the cryopod, and his ankles are similarly chained.  Haxus could break the cuffs easily--he still has his blaster with him, but he hesitates.  The forearm piece of Sendak’s cybernetic is missing entirely, and the shoulder piece hums ominously.  Haxus switches it off before it can overload.  He hesitates again, one hand hovering over Sendak's right shoulder.  Sendak's head lolls on his neck, his eye shut, breathing ragged and shallow.  There’s a scrape along his left cheekbone.  Blood oozes from his remaining hand, trickling down his fingers and dripping into a small puddle below it.  Haxus cups Sendak's right cheek instead, stroking the line of his scar.  Sendak doesn't stir.

That complicates things.

Haxus could carry him.  He’s done it before, dragging Sendak out of more than a few scrapes, but usually Sendak had been conscious enough to be a little help, and right now he’s dead to the world.  Sendak weighs nearly a third again what Haxus did--too much for Haxus to move easily on his own.  And if one of the paladins catches him trying to carry Sendak out, he will lose that fight.

Haxus could try to get them out through the vents--but the moment it occurs to him he dismisses it.  Sendak would be almost impossible to lug through those small spaces or haul up the drops.

So, really, he has no good options.  But he can't leave Sendak--not like this, not helpless, unconscious, clearly injured.  He smooths his thumb over the scar again.

All his choices are no choice at all.  He can't get Sendak out.  Not like this, not on his own.  And he can feel the ticker running down.

“I’ll come back for you,” he whispers, leaning his forehead against Sendak's.  “I promise, I’ll come back.”  He takes a deep breath, inhaling Sendak's scent.  Dust.  Pine.  Musk.  All layered over with copper and ozone, the stench of blood and quintessence.  “I love you.  I _love_ you.  I'll come back for you if it _kills_ me.”

When Haxus ducks his head to kiss him goodbye, Sendak’s lips taste like blood.

And then he retreats, scrambling back up into the vent to collect his boots and make an escape.  His heart tugs violently in his chest, pulling back towards Sendak.  Haxus ignores it.  He has to ignore it.  To leave is unimaginable.  To stay is to die.  He casts one final glance down through the grate at Sendak, memorizing his unconscious sprawl, the limp curve of his ears.  And then he tears himself away.  He can’t wait even a tick longer, or he won’t be _able_ to leave.

* * *

 

It’s night outside again--dark to dark, he and Sendak lost almost a full day inside the Castle, fighting for escape.  The air is cool on Haxus's face, the ground rough under his still-bare feet.  He scents the air--warm stone and growing things, and the fading scent of the paladin and the Altean princess, and underneath that his own scent, and Sendak's.  His heart aches.  His fingers twitch, instinctively reaching for Sendak, and the empty places where he should be scrape Haxus's chest cavity hollow.

Haxus slips into the shadows, making his way back to the pod.  His thoughts are on the Castle, and on Sendak.   _Sendak_ .   _His_ partner.  His hands clench into fists.  His pain subsides, concentrating into something hard and sharp just behind his sternum.  He takes a deep breath of the night air, tasting dust on his tongue.

He _will_ make it back to Sendak.  Or he will _die_ trying.


End file.
